wasnt asked for a reference but an employee was

jasonrat

wondered if anyone could help
an ex employyee of mine went for another job and she named a colleague as a potential reference
she had worked here for about a year but the colleague had only worked with her and known for about 4 weeks .
now this could be misleading to the potential employee.
what would you do? just forget about it and get on ? or contact the potential employers

JCD_Capulet

I'm not sure anything should be done, it's her choice who she names as a reference.

jasonrat

yeah sure i believe that to be true
but she could be misleading the new employers and they might assume that she had actually worked for him the length of time
also it was addressed to the business too

JCD_Capulet

Hmm. Do you have any grounds to suspect that the person who gave the reference may have lied? Or is there any damning qualities about the person requiring the reference that you feel the new employer should know about? If you can answer an honest no to both of theese then I'd just leave it.

I would however take the person who gave the reference into the office and have a word with them about taking mail that isn't addressed to them. Speaking as an ex manager here.

Mark7799

Wouldn't one of the questions be to ask the referee how long they had known the prospective employee? Be interesting to find out how she answered this - either honestly (in which case how valuable is that reference to the new employer) or dishonestly - who decides what to do with her then

Incisor

AFAICS, it is between the new employer, the person they took on and your employee who gave the reference.

BUT if

• the person taken on gave the new employer the impression that your employee would a reference on behalf of your organisation
• your employee gave a reference in the name of your organisation

then you have something to say about it. But it is not so much to do with whether the new employer is being misled as to do with maintaining your organisation's reputation for not giving misleading references.

As the reference request was addressed to the business, you have good grounds for asking the employee giving the reference to disclose what was written. If they don't, then I doubt that it is worth forcing them to reveal the contents or to take it any further with them, except to tell them that you will be writing to the new employer to advise that the opinion was given by your employee in a personal capacity.

Of course, if it was done on company letterhead, then you have a more serious problem - you should demand to see what was written - this would be a fairly serious example of misconduct. You must write to the other company, but only to advise that the opinion was given by your employee in a personal capacity.

But, be careful, I have had it the other way, where I have been prepared to offer a personal reference for someone I supervised and the company I worked for applied pressure to try and prevent me. I believe that as long as I made it clear that I was writing in a personal capacity, the company would have no grounds whatsoever to interfere.

jasonrat

thanks for all your help
the envelope was addressed to
joe bloggs
xy technology
any street
any town

the employee in question did say that she has asked him for a reference i kinda found it wierd
i know for a start i would have given and by law a fair reference
but it seems she might be misleading the prospective employee

Incisor

So did the reference go out on XY Technology headed paper? This is the thing you need to be clear about.

LittleVoice

And for the future I recommend that you advise all employees that any reference requests should be addressed to a specific point in the organisation. (Depending on the size, this could be the MD or HR.)

That way the company can be sure of the facts being given in its name.

That does not mean that individual employees cannot be personal referees but it protects the company and you can keep all references in the appropriate personal file - which makes completing future ones easier too.,

Zazen999

Is the person who gave the reference authorised to do so? Is the reference on file so that you can see it?

I would also have a problem with this, esp if the person giving the reference did not speak to you prior to giving the reference. It is not in the interest of the company to give a reference without consulting the line manager, and whether good or bad, it can have potential consequences for the new company.

I'd ask for a copy of the reference from the person who gave it, and if that is not forthcoming look to the internal disciplinary procedure to address it. I'd then also contact the recruiting manager for a chat about the context of the reference, and then issue a proper reference for that person.

Then, the internal management needs to know the procedure for giving references, if you haven't got one, then you need to get one.

duchy

Have you considered WHY she chose not to name you as the referee ?
Quite honestly as she's left it's not your concern beyond tightening up who can or can't give references within your company.....but it sounds to me like there's more to this story than you are letting on.